Tue, 11 Apr 2000

Troubles with Telstra // at 12:00

2000-Apr-11 Tuesday

A simple task — I called Telstra to ask for the phone to be changed
from 5/42 Cameron street to 1/59 Westbank terrace. Both addresses are
in the same suburb so it is a simple job and I can take the number
with me. They ask me to make sure that a phone is plugged in on
Thursday night and it will be done on Friday (2000-Apr-14).

2000-Apr-16 Sunday — +5 days

Called Telstra faults (132203) since the phone is still not working.
I can receive a dial tone, but all outgoing calls result in a message
that “that service is not available from this phone.” Apparently the
job is marked as "incomplete" in their database, but with no
explanation. I am assured that it will be fixed on Monday
(2000-Apr-17), and that someone will call me on my mobile.

2000-Apr-17 Monday — +6days

At 16:45 I called Telstra since no-one has called me yet. I go
through the whole rigmarole again and am asked to check with a phone
in both sockets at home, in case one is working and one isn't. They
believe that the phone has been connected by Optus in the past and
thus it is "difficult" to transfer the number, I'm told to check and
call Telstra Sales tomorrow, not faults, on 132200.

2000-Apr-18 Tuesday — +7 days

Call up in the morning to Telstra Sales and am directed through three
different people, at each point I have to go through the entire story
again, eventually I am told that I have to go home, call 12722123 to
find out what number is allocated to my connection, and then to report
this number back to faults!

Get home, both sockets give a generated message stating that
the number is 03 9421 2321.

2000-Apr-19 Wednesday — +8 days

Call up Telstra Faults again, only have to give the story to two
people this time. Tell them that my number is 9421 2321. They assure
me that it will be connected some time today, but cannot guarantee
when.

Get home and check 12722123 and still get told 9421 2321.

2000-Apr-20 Thursday — +9 days

Call up Telstra Faults again and explain that it is now a week that
I've beeen chasing my phone around, that I was told it would be
connected yesterday, but that at 7pm I still could not make calls and
was being told that my number was still the old number. According to
their records the job was done yesterday, which doesn't explain why
the message still says 9421 2321. It is recorded that there is a
"line fault" that will require a technician to attend, this will be
done by close of business on the 22nd. After asking about three times
I'm told that COB on a Saturday is 6pm.

2000-Apr-22 Saturday — +11 days

At 12:30 a Telstra technician showed up, I hadn't realised that he
would require access to the premises and so it was pure chance that I
was home! He assured me that it would only take 5-10 minutes. After
several visits to the cables in the shared carport, and off down the
street, I eventually had my phone connected at 2:00pm. He claimed
that there were a number of incorrect things done in the wiring and it
had taken a lot of tracing to find my cable. Not bad for a job that
was supposed to be done 10 days ago!

2000-Apr-27 Thursday — +16 days

Called 132200-24 to see whether I get any kind of refund on my
"service" charge since I was without a home phone for 10 days. After
being referred through to "Jo" in their customer service area who is
investigating whether I am eligible for a refund, I was put on hold
for 11 minutes and then hung up on. 5 minutes later tried again,
after the second menu of the voicemail system I got an engaged signal
and kicked out again. Another five minutes later, all the way down
through the voice mail system, give all the details again to the
person on the phone. This time she has to call faults, since the job
record shows that my phone was successfully connected on the 14th.
Ten minutes later and I'm getting a $13.xx refund, and according to
them my phone was first reported as not working on the 19th! I've no
idea where the calls on the 16th, 17th and 18th went — I guess it
makes the job records look good if you can shave two or three days off
every fault report.